Pink Petal Games
Feedback => New Features => Topic started by: Lorde on June 27, 2010, 12:22:20 PM
-
We probably need a focused discussion on Gangs. Seeing as how the main focus on the Less is more thread was on them. So I'll add my chips to the pile first I guess.
- Don't need to remove gangs. Just need to fix them. Removing them just dummies down the game. Admittedly, all they currently do is give you benefit with very little restriction.
- Potential to zerg with Gangs currently is a huge balance issue. You can, from the very start of the game, hire the first 2 "stronger" gangs you get and set them on Acquire Territory with little to no consequence. You will have a ridiculous amount of territory before your rivals or the authorities take notice of you. Then take one off and put them on guard duty. Hire 6 more gangs, max out there weapons and put them on training till there lowest stat is in the 50's. Now just Set those 6 on sabatoge and you will eventually win. All rivals gone, All new rivals turned into "A sticky, runny, pink paste.... That is seeping into the cracks of the floor as we speak" within 2 weeks.
- Girls are already being given many tasks gangs are given with the new updates. Why not have the ability to make gangs from the girls?
-
Don't need to remove gangs. Just need to fix them. Removing them just dummies down the game. Admittedly, all they currently do is give you benefit with very little restriction.
Agreed. I think it's important to have a game to go with the H elements. This is why Illusion's last few offerings have been so dreadful, IMHO: they removed from their games every element that didn't involve pr0n, and wound up with no game at all.
Potential to zerg with Gangs currently is a huge balance issue. You can, from the very start of the game, hire the first 2 "stronger" gangs you get and set them on Acquire Territory with little to no consequence.
I agree the gang side of the game is neglected. I'd like to see smarter rivals, more work from the player needed to find them and eliminate them, rival strongholds that needed to be stormed, and intelligence gathering to find them in the first place. Mind, the last time I proposed giving the gangs some love I got a flea in my ear for trying to "make the game not be about the girls anymore". It seems there's always opposition to any gameplay element that doesn't directly result in a picture of a pair of naked breasts.
Girls are already being given many tasks gangs are given with the new updates. Why not have the ability to make gangs from the girls?
I've always resisted the girl-gangs idea when it's cropped up in the past. Not sure why, to be honest, it just doesn't sit well with how I see the game, I suppose. That said, it's a popular proposal, and I was thinking of doing much the same thing in clonemaster, so maybe we should do it. Technically, it's not entirely straight forward, but if we're considering overhauling gangs in the first place we could probably roll the work into that.
-
Why not make it so the girl gangs can only go into the catacombs when the option to do other-things with them is implemented. :)
-
Agreed. I think it's important to have a game to go with the H elements. This is why Illusion's last few offerings have been so dreadful, IMHO: they removed from their games every element that didn't involve pr0n, and wound up with no game at all.
With few exceptions, Japan has become a shovelware mill churning out the "exact same thing that made money 3 months ago." Can't really blame them, there economy is in the shitter just like everyone else's. But it's damaging there reputation and let western game developers finally grab the brass ring. (Thank atari for losing it in the first place)
Nowhere is this more pronounced then in the H game area. There are 4 H games being released constantly in japan. One where the Heroines all get gang raped, one where the heroines are all lolitas, one where a guy scores with different school girls and one Illusion makes that's 3d. Been this way since 2005 probably won't change till another company comes along and kicks Illusions ass (2 years tops. Some of the 3d amateur work on DLsite is starting to look very good.) Then we will see a Renaissance in 3d H gaming. Illusion will have to adapt or die. And if they can't adapt, and come out with a decent "game" then good riddance.
I agree the gang side of the game is neglected. I'd like to see smarter rivals, more work from the player needed to find them and eliminate them, rival strongholds that needed to be stormed, and intelligence gathering to find them in the first place. Mind, the last time I proposed giving the gangs some love I got a flea in my ear for trying to "make the game not be about the girls anymore". It seems there's always opposition to any gameplay element that doesn't directly result in a picture of a pair of naked breasts.
Like I said before, give them a link to infranvue and some image packs and send them on there way. :D
I've always resisted the girl-gangs idea when it's cropped up in the past. Not sure why, to be honest, it just doesn't sit well with how I see the game, I suppose. That said, it's a popular proposal, and I was thinking of doing much the same thing in clonemaster, so maybe we should do it. Technically, it's not entirely straight forward, but if we're considering overhauling gangs in the first place we could probably roll the work into that.
Why not make it so the girl gangs can only go into the catacombs when the option to do other-things with them is implemented. :)
Here is a cool compromise, small groups of 4-6 girls like an xp party. Hell you can even add RPG elements way in the future. :D
-
I'll take role of the opposition then.
After reading both this thread and the more is less thread the main argument for keeping gangs is increased interactivity and depth. (Correct me if I'm wrong here.)
In that vein I propose that absorbing gangs into the girls will create opportunity for more interactivity and depth.
Merging the two systems creates a single system that has the depth of both without the additional programing, balance and micromanagement costs two systems. For example currently there are two ways to raid the catacombs if someone wants to improve that job they have to do so twice and balance both in order to keep both the gangs and girls in order. The reduction in overhead allows the programmers to make the girls system reach a greater potential faster. Like how while we're close to getting recruitment scripts for girls there's is nothing like that on the horizon for gangs. There are a lot of thing that are on the table to fix(movie making), make meaningful(accommodations/STDs) and to add(customizable brothels, town walk scripts). What gets neglected to expand gangs to where they're as interesting as the girls?
What do gangs add? Gangs add complexity but they do not add depth. As it stands there is nothing a gang does in-game that cannot be co-opted by the girls. All gangs are are a collection of stats, a few jobs and a pool of consumables. Girls have all of this already with more options, customization and detail.
In addition a girl is more relateable with a picture and a bit of history rather than a faceless mob. I'm unhappy when one of them dies but couldn't care less when a gang bites it.
Personally, I find both systems too simplistic and would like to have a more nuanced system with greater depth. Rolling them together seems a logical step to have one great system. Where as maintaining gangs entails recreating certain activities robbing potential depth, storytelling and interactivity from the girls side. So, unless gangs get an overhaul that makes them interesting and truly distinct from girls I say trash them and make brothel customization the sub-game.
By the way it's a great game and I only take this position because I really do think it will make a better game in the long run.
-
More Ideas I had.
An alternate approach would be to have just 1 gang. Have it at 100 max members and set checkboxes on what they can or can't do. (sorta like brothel setup with all the checkboxes for what can go on there.)
Training and recruitment are automatically handled. Items can be bought for your gang to improve stats. (new item catagory)
Stats can be a range that gets higher while tightening as the gang gets more powerful. (example: Combat starts at a range of 0-20 and ends at a range of 95-100) Gangs succeeding without dying raises these numbers. losing members causes these numbers to drop)
You can add girls to this "Gang" that would give the gang bonuses to certain tasks. (Example, give a girl the job of catacombs, your gang has a bonus towards a successful catacombs run.)
-
That idea could work beautifully. ;D
-
ya, it would also give us a place to put useless girls, to get them out of the way (they do still go back into the pool and reappear in the slave shop right?), if this is removing them from the brothels. it could also add another money drop, non-brothel housing, upkeep, etc. if slaves are used this way, if free girls are used then they would have to provide for themselves (you can trust them not to run away, or at least they have the right to) which adds some balance between slaves vs free girls.
-
WM has been through major engine overhauls since it's conception. This has delayed any major progress on enhancing any existing gameplay, while this is not a bad thing I think the most important thing WM needs is to become more personal. You don't care about your gangs because they're just numbers going out to do various tasks for you. Whatever your reason for caring about your girls (She's your favorite, she's your best) whatever that may be just doesn't do the same for gangs. Once you max out a gang you can always replace their numbers so there's no real sense of "loss" and since you never interact with the various members of the gangs they don't mean anything to you.
This is not to say girls don't have the same lifeless feeling as gangs do. They most certainly do. Adding a "face" to your gangs would be a start, but it wouldn't do much in the end. And while I don't disagree it would be cool to have your girls be gang leaders, it just makes Crossgate seem like a town full of women. Which I'm pretty sure it is not.
Now I've been pushing for more interaction within the game since it started, so I may be more biased on my thoughts than some of the others, but I have no doubt once we can add NPCs you can interact with, negotiate with, give a face for the governor and various other NPCs as well as gangs. WM will be 100x bigger than it is now. It only feels empty because you simply don't care about anything or anyone. They're all replaceable. Yes, you're a slave owner so you shouldn't have feelings for anyone who isn't paying you right?
But will you be able to turn a woman down half naked covered in bruises, cuts and blood being chased by some thugs?
Do you ignore her or help her?
You beat up the thugs, rescue the damsel allow her to heal and rest in your home. Then the next day you find your vault was broken into and you're 10k short. The girl? Nowhere to be found.
I'm sure a solid scripting system will change all this, imagine what the community could do? Can you even think of how big this game would be? Hell, with a solid scripting system you can lay the foundation to your own story, own events what have you. It'll be pretty much an open book for creativity. You could essentially make your own game from it.
I personally think all WM needs at the moment is more of a narrative, allowing us to use images for NPCs and interacting with them.
As it stands WM is a fairly solid game, there's some balancing problems, there isn't much to strive for but that could be addressed at another time, it just feels very very empty. Modders are flooding it with girls to try and make it seem less barren but the fact of the matter is, there's nothing to keep the player playing. You have to make your own imaginary goals.
After getting SLIGHTLY off topic I would like to say giving the gangs leaders would be a viable option, it'd be silly to give the whole gang a face and interact with them, but more so a leader, captain, commander whatever you want to call them. Would be the person in charge, this person would offer various boosts to the current gangs stats and abilities. (+10 to strength, bonus to kidnapping ect.) They'd only need a single image to portray that they're the leader and you could even add a bar area where you can find these people. Instead of having random ones though, i'd make them all fairly unique and very limited I'd say only allow 5 you can recruit to exist in any given game. Perhaps that's too many? I'm not sure. I suppose that it could also be a role for your sons. Who knows?
-
Mehzerz: It sounds like you are conceiving of a narrative structure like King of Dragon Pass or Castles II. Or is there another example game that illustrates how you want to have story better?
I disagree on the girls being completely lifeless. While in game they are quite lifeless most people have ones that they have opinions about of outside of WM. While illogical it does creates a bond to that character that nothing currently in WM can compare to.
Also my vote is naming the leaders Lieutenants for the mafia feel. :)
Lorde: I like your idea as it's something different that just won't be a simpler version of the girls. Am I correctly thinking of it working like ordinances from SimCity; check what options you want with various rewards, heat levels and casualty rates? Oh, could it have the slow corruption or reformation of the city council opening up new options(Eg now we're the official city watch) like HentaiHigh had?
-
WM has been through major engine overhauls since it's conception. This has delayed any major progress on enhancing any existing gameplay, while this is not a bad thing I think the most important thing WM needs is to become more personal. You don't care about your gangs because they're just numbers going out to do various tasks for you. Whatever your reason for caring about your girls (She's your favorite, she's your best) whatever that may be just doesn't do the same for gangs. Once you max out a gang you can always replace their numbers so there's no real sense of "loss" and since you never interact with the various members of the gangs they don't mean anything to you.
Agreed, which is one of the reasons I thought of the idea of 1 gang. If it's just a collection of numbers, just simplify it.
This is not to say girls don't have the same lifeless feeling as gangs do. They most certainly do. Adding a "face" to your gangs would be a start, but it wouldn't do much in the end. And while I don't disagree it would be cool to have your girls be gang leaders, it just makes Crossgate seem like a town full of women. Which I'm pretty sure it is not.
Possible answer to this would be support for male prostitutes. :D
Now I've been pushing for more interaction within the game since it started, so I may be more biased on my thoughts than some of the others, but I have no doubt once we can add NPCs you can interact with, negotiate with, give a face for the governor and various other NPCs as well as gangs. WM will be 100x bigger than it is now. It only feels empty because you simply don't care about anything or anyone. They're all replaceable. Yes, you're a slave owner so you shouldn't have feelings for anyone who isn't paying you right?
But will you be able to turn a woman down half naked covered in bruises, cuts and blood being chased by some thugs?
Do you ignore her or help her?
You beat up the thugs, rescue the damsel allow her to heal and rest in your home. Then the next day you find your vault was broken into and you're 10k short. The girl? Nowhere to be found.
I'm sure a solid scripting system will change all this, imagine what the community could do? Can you even think of how big this game would be? Hell, with a solid scripting system you can lay the foundation to your own story, own events what have you. It'll be pretty much an open book for creativity. You could essentially make your own game from it.
I personally think all WM needs at the moment is more of a narrative, allowing us to use images for NPCs and interacting with them.
You are 100% right. If anything the game needs more interactivity with the world and the people who live in it. When that's finished however, Mechanics can wait..... Still nice to talk about though.
As it stands WM is a fairly solid game, there's some balancing problems, there isn't much to strive for but that could be addressed at another time, it just feels very very empty. Modders are flooding it with girls to try and make it seem less barren but the fact of the matter is, there's nothing to keep the player playing. You have to make your own imaginary goals.
After getting SLIGHTLY off topic I would like to say giving the gangs leaders would be a viable option, it'd be silly to give the whole gang a face and interact with them, but more so a leader, captain, commander whatever you want to call them. Would be the person in charge, this person would offer various boosts to the current gangs stats and abilities. (+10 to strength, bonus to kidnapping ect.) They'd only need a single image to portray that they're the leader and you could even add a bar area where you can find these people. Instead of having random ones though, i'd make them all fairly unique and very limited I'd say only allow 5 you can recruit to exist in any given game. Perhaps that's too many? I'm not sure. I suppose that it could also be a role for your sons. Who knows?
I like the idea of passing off gang leadership to the players sons. Would make pregnancy important. Risks turning the game into a breeding sim. But why not?
Lorde: I like your idea as it's something different that just won't be a simpler version of the girls. Am I correctly thinking of it working like ordinances from SimCity; check what options you want with various rewards, heat levels and casualty rates? Oh, could it have the slow corruption or reformation of the city council opening up new options(Eg now we're the official city watch) like HentaiHigh had?
That's actually a good allegory with SimCity. The game already has a checkbox set up for your brothel. Where you click what can and can't go on there. In a similar vain, For gangs, you check off what they can or can't do.
-
The one big problem I can see with the 'one gang' idea is that it can lead to the player being unable to ever recover. If the gang takes some losses to a raid and loses stats, it can lead to a snowball effect where your gang will never be strong enough to repel raids and just keep getting weaker and weaker until you lose. Having multiple gangs means that if one takes unexpected losses, you still have another at full stength to deal with attacks. I like the one gang idea otherwise, as this would be much easier to integrate with girl jobs as you say.
I think a compromise and some tweaks could work here:
-Reduce the number of gangs the player can control. Maybe like 4 at most.
-Recruiting should lower stats, as you're replacing trained gang memebers with fresh recruits. Combined with the lower gang limit, this would encourage the player to avoid reckless assignments.
-Have a cap on training. After a certain point, you should have to give gangs real experience to improve. This would eliminate players from parking gangs on Training until they are invincible.
-Instead of assigning girls to a gang, have certain jobs give a % boost to success like advertisting currently works.
-Theft assignments needs a major balance overhaul. At the moment, sabotage brings in WAY more money and eventually removes your rivals from the game. Some things off the top of my head;
Petty Theft should be extremely safe and have a chance to get the player common type items. I'd suggest even removing the chance to be killed on this entirely, as robbing old ladies should not result in thugs getting killed. This would ideally make a viable alternative to Training, only you get some income at the expense of stats not going up as fast.
Grand Theft should have the same risk as now, but have higher average gold rewards a chance to get uncommon to rare level items as well. This would make the gains worth the risk compared to sabotage.
-
how would guarding work with one gang?
would you have to choose between raiding the catacombs and guarding your property? or anything else?
would they be able to do multiple tasks? if so, why not just stick with the gangs we have?
personally, I'd prefer just expanding on the system we have now
-
would they be able to do multiple tasks? if so, why not just stick with the gangs we have?
Less complexity for a start. Why bother with putting a gang on guard duty, training another, putting your training gang on guard duty when the first gang gets trounced. Forgetting your first gang has fully recruited thus having 2 gangs guarding. Putting second gang back on training. Only to repeat the above. Then you leave the second gang on guard duty and train the first.....
Would be easier to just have one gang and click off an option "This gang will guard" and a percentage of goons will be put on guard duty from the larger pool. They then replenish there number as needed.
The one big problem I can see with the 'one gang' idea is that it can lead to the player being unable to ever recover. If the gang takes some losses to a raid and loses stats, it can lead to a snowball effect where your gang will never be strong enough to repel raids and just keep getting weaker and weaker until you lose.
Was thinking of a way out of this scenario. Having gangs revert to guarding status when there number / stats hit a certain point would be a good safety net.
-Have a cap on training. After a certain point, you should have to give gangs real experience to improve. This would eliminate players from parking gangs on Training until they are invincible.
Why not eliminate training all together? have the gangs improve by doing. Small jobs at first. When the gang gets sufficiently strong enough, it can move on to more risky assignments.
-
Petty Theft should be extremely safe and have a chance to get the player common type items. I'd suggest even removing the chance to be killed on this entirely, as robbing old ladies should not result in thugs getting killed.
I still think there should be a very very small chance a member or two could be killed. Much like in Reservoir Dogs when the guy who robs a bank had no way thought some random civilian would shoot him, i'd imagine it'd be similar to that concept. .5% chance, could even write a special blurb about it.
Otherwise I pretty much agree with everything else. I don't think there should be any 100% safe way to do anything when running a gang and brothel. Especially if your suspicion is on the higher end of the scale.
-
Following the unified gang format as I understood it you have X Goons and you put them into different jobs as needed like.
So for an example:
Security Detail: Neutral, 5G, Moderate risk, "Your basic personal protection you loose this and you're on your own"
Robbery: Suspicious, 15G, low risk, "Robbing stores and civilians is an easy way to get items and some cash."
Kidnapping: Very suspicious, 20G, low risk, "Kidnapping takes time and causes a lot of resentment but every girl kidnapped you don't have to pay."
Patrols: Suspicious, 10G, moderate risk, "Having your goons wander your teritoury protects your girls and businesses but raises your profile a bit."
Bribery: Reduce suspicion, 100G, low risk, "Greasing the public trust is expensive but they'll overlook some things."
Recruitment: Suspicious, 25G, no risk, "Recruiting more goons means there's more you can do. Too bad that the more you've got the harder it is to find more."
Just insert a goons per task and off you go
I really like the concept too; to bad it would require a major overhaul of gangs.
-
I don't think gangs should ever have anything to do with increasing disposition or lawfullness. These should generally be the LAST people you want acting as your PR team.
Although I forgot about Spy on Girls and how useless it is currently. Knowing how much money the girls have really isn't useful enough to have a gang on it full time. It needs to be expanded, like maybe once the beta stages are over and most of the extra stat information is removed, have it re-enable this information if you have a gang on it.
-
I don't think gangs should ever have anything to do with increasing disposition or lawfullness. These should generally be the LAST people you want acting as your PR team.
I don't think you can do much about the lawfulness side. Unless the police force of crosgate are completely inept. Or there is no Media there as we know it. Or you have scared people so much that they refuse to speak ill against you.
People are going to know that the gang belongs to you AND that they aren't doing nice things.
-
I'll take role of the opposition then.
After reading both this thread and the more is less thread the main argument for keeping gangs is increased interactivity and depth. (Correct me if I'm wrong here.)
In that vein I propose that absorbing gangs into the girls will create opportunity for more interactivity and depth.
Merging the two systems creates a single system that has the depth of both without the additional programing, balance and micromanagement costs two systems. For example currently there are two ways to raid the catacombs if someone wants to improve that job they have to do so twice and balance both in order to keep both the gangs and girls in order. The reduction in overhead allows the programmers to make the girls system reach a greater potential faster. Like how while we're close to getting recruitment scripts for girls there's is nothing like that on the horizon for gangs. There are a lot of thing that are on the table to fix(movie making), make meaningful(accommodations/STDs) and to add(customizable brothels, town walk scripts). What gets neglected to expand gangs to where they're as interesting as the girls?
What do gangs add? Gangs add complexity but they do not add depth. As it stands there is nothing a gang does in-game that cannot be co-opted by the girls. All gangs are are a collection of stats, a few jobs and a pool of consumables. Girls have all of this already with more options, customization and detail.
In addition a girl is more relateable with a picture and a bit of history rather than a faceless mob. I'm unhappy when one of them dies but couldn't care less when a gang bites it.
Personally, I find both systems too simplistic and would like to have a more nuanced system with greater depth. Rolling them together seems a logical step to have one great system. Where as maintaining gangs entails recreating certain activities robbing potential depth, storytelling and interactivity from the girls side. So, unless gangs get an overhaul that makes them interesting and truly distinct from girls I say trash them and make brothel customization the sub-game.
By the way it's a great game and I only take this position because I really do think it will make a better game in the long run.
This is actually a pretty decent proposal. No one seems to care for the gangs anyways, they're pretty bland as of now and if girls can already do what they do with more defined stats. Why not have girls do that for you?
-
I frankly wouldn't mind either way if the gangs are expanded or simply removed myself. The problem with them, conceptually, is that the gangwar part of the game feels like a seperate game from the brothel. A seperate part of the game the some people don't have any interest in. I guess it boils down to what you want Whoremaster to be; is it a brothel sim, or a criminal organization sim? Some people here would clearly like it to be a straight brothel sim, and I can't entirely blame them as looking at the girls is far more interesting than a bunch of faceless gangs.
And that right there is the #1 problem with gangs currently. For any overhaul of gangs to be worthwhile, gangs need to have personality. The player needs to care about their gangs, or they will forever seem like a tedious chore you need to deal with from time to time regardless of usefulness or game difficulty.
-
And that right there is the #1 problem with gangs currently. For any overhaul of gangs to be worthwhile, gangs need to have personality. The player needs to care about their gangs, or they will forever seem like a tedious chore you need to deal with from time to time regardless of usefulness or game difficulty.
I agree with that, which is why I suggested leaders to be the "face" of the gang. It'd only be a single image, you wouldn't need multiple, unless maybe you wanted a profile and a "battle" image. But I don't know if that'd be completely necessary.
But that wouldn't change the fact that they're pretty separate from the game. I suppose the question is, how do we make the gangs seem like they belong in the game? Are you a brothel master or a gang leader? Perhaps there just isn't anything to tie the two together. But why do they really have to be?
-
Faces for gang leaders would be good. Maybe have a leader pool and give them some abilities, so one of them has bonuses for raiding, another reduces the chances of customer rape if he's assigned guard duty. That sort of thing.
Maybe see about some gang based events as well. we could have the occasional scene when a gang encounters a girl in the catacombs, customised to the personality of the leader. Not every time, of course, or we'd go nuts. Just occasionally as a bit of spice. Same for burning down an enemy brothel, wiping out a rival leader, stopping a customer rape... lots of stuff we could do. Probably do it the same way as with girl events - xml and lua.
-
Faces for gang leaders would be good. Maybe have a leader pool and give them some abilities, so one of them has bonuses for raiding, another reduces the chances of customer rape if he's assigned guard duty. That sort of thing.
Maybe see about some gang based events as well. we could have the occasional scene when a gang encounters a girl in the catacombs, customised to the personality of the leader. Not every time, of course, or we'd go nuts. Just occasionally as a bit of spice. Same for burning down an enemy brothel, wiping out a rival leader, stopping a customer rape... lots of stuff we could do. Probably do it the same way as with girl events - xml and lua.
That's pretty much how I imagined it. I figured leaders would be harder to come by though, as in... we wouldn't have filler randoms and you'd definitely wouldn't be able to put one in EVERY gang. Then I thought sons could be potential leaders as well, so I guess in that case they'd be "filler randoms" so I'm really not sure. I like the idea that they're harder to come by. Perhaps I'm just used to having so much handed to me in the standard WM and think it'd be a nice change of pace to have to work for something lol.
-
That's pretty much how I imagined it. I figured leaders would be harder to come by though, as in... we wouldn't have filler randoms and you'd definitely wouldn't be able to put one in EVERY gang. Then I thought sons could be potential leaders as well, so I guess in that case they'd be "filler randoms" so I'm really not sure. I like the idea that they're harder to come by. Perhaps I'm just used to having so much handed to me in the standard WM and think it'd be a nice change of pace to have to work for something lol.
Oh, I'm all in favour of having to work a bit harder to get some things done. I've always thought of a gang as being basically the leader, plus the goons he recruits but I like the notion that they're slots that you can fill. Maybe have some generic low-bonus leaders (the goon equivalent of the random girls) that fill the slots by default, just so we have something to hang some events on. Then we can have the good ones turn up in response to events or objectives being met.
Hmmm.... I need to think about objectives, too. They're way too easy at the moment.
-
Sounds solid. I'm interested to see what you come up with.
-
I still like the idea of one gang :D
However, finding leaders lieutenants and "Mid Bosses" for your goons is a great idea.
Oh, I'm all in favour of having to work a bit harder to get some things done.
Please do, Even with the config file set up to make the game harder, it still eventually devolves into "Hitting the next week button for the sake of hitting the next week button". Rivals Killed, Whores maxed out, brothels full of all the uniques, and a small army of whores to go along with your gangs to the catacombs to try and farm rare items... that do nothing for your girls at this point but make new random girls maxed out on acquisition.
Anything not handed to me instantly would be a great change of pace at this point. ;D
-
I think a compromise and some tweaks could work here:
-Reduce the number of gangs the player can control. Maybe like 4 at most.
-Recruiting should lower stats, as you're replacing trained gang members with fresh recruits. Combined with the lower gang limit, this would encourage the player to avoid reckless assignments.
-Have a cap on training. After a certain point, you should have to give gangs real experience to improve. This would eliminate players from parking gangs on Training until they are invincible.
-Instead of assigning girls to a gang, have certain jobs give a % boost to success like advertisting currently works.
-Theft assignments needs a major balance overhaul. At the moment, sabotage brings in WAY more money and eventually removes your rivals from the game. Some things off the top of my head;
Petty Theft should be extremely safe and have a chance to get the player common type items
Grand Theft should have the same risk as now, but have higher average gold rewards a chance to get uncommon to rare level items as well. This would make the gains worth the risk compared to sabotage.
I agree with everything here, except I'd like to see some potential for death for all events. Even if it's a tiny percentage like 0.5 shit happens man. You never know.
I don't disagree with the 1 gang idea Lorde I just don't really get how it'd work, there's so many events gangs can do that if there's a check option for what they can and cannot do they'll just do a random one am I right? Though as a bonus, if you could only recruit one gang leader for your entire gang it'd make events easier to personalize. (IMO)
Besides having lieutenants offers more modifiability for the fans of that. What would be cooler than having Guttz and/or Dante running your gang? NOTHING I SAY. NOTHING.
-
I agree with everything here, except I'd like to see some potential for death for all events. Even if it's a tiny percentage like 0.5 shit happens man. You never know.
I don't disagree with the 1 gang idea Lorde I just don't really get how it'd work, there's so many events gangs can do that if there's a check option for what they can and cannot do they'll just do a random one am I right?
Actually no. Since it would be one big gang, you could split up the tasks between the one gang. We have now what? 6-8 gangs of 15 people? You send 1 gang to the catas one on guarding one sabotage and that's 45 people right there. What I am proposing is you select things for the larger gang to do, and it gets split up amongst the current pool. So if you have a larger gang of 45 people, and do the same things, the game would split the gang up into 3 groups of 15 each and send them out.
Simple and the game could have cut offs for minimum amount of goons needed for a task. Defaulting to guard duty if it drops to 15 or below.
-
Unless I'm reading that wrong, isn't that pretty much just the same thing we have now, only with the added micromanagement of assigning numbers instead of whole gangs? It would prevent you from sending 6 full gangs on one assignment, which would certainly help balance, but the same policy could be set for the current system (ie there can only be one set on sabotager, one kidnapper, etc.) without the extra complication and work for the devs.
-
Unless I'm reading that wrong, isn't that pretty much just the same thing we have now, only with the added micromanagement of assigning numbers instead of whole gangs?
No, this would be auto-allotted based on the current pool of gang members. So if you had 100 members in the gang, and checked off guarding only, 100 members would be guarding. If you had Catacombs, Guarding, Sabotage and acquire territory checked, then the game would auto-assign 25 members to each job.
-
What if you put in a racial aspect to the gangs? Like having gangs of werewolves or a gang composed of demons? They could be predisposed to specialize in certain tasks, like a group of orcs who get a bonus in smash n grab jobs, like sabotaging. Or if you hire vampires they'd be good at luring and kidnapping girls. It would also affect how fast or slow skills advance. Brutish races improve physical aspects faster and so on. Could something like that be done, or is that going to far?
Another idea I had would be to create an arson job, where your gangs focus more on destroying rival businesses instead of looting. Casualties would probably be unavoidable, since you're dealing with flames and stuff that goes boom. I thought that would balance things out somehow.
No, this would be auto-allotted based on the current pool of gang members. So if you had 100 members in the gang, and checked off guarding only, 100 members would be guarding. If you had Catacombs, Guarding, Sabotage and acquire territory checked, then the game would auto-assign 25 members to each job.
Maybe you should add sliders instead to change what percentage of your "forces" would be dedicated to each task. Being unable to control specifically how many troops are assigned could lead to problems (and more whiny bitches pissin and moanin about it on the forums)
-
What if you put in a racial aspect to the gangs? Like having gangs of werewolves or a gang composed of demons? They could be predisposed to specialize in certain tasks, like a group of orcs who get a bonus in smash n grab jobs, like sabotaging. Or if you hire vampires they'd be good at luring and kidnapping girls. It would also affect how fast or slow skills advance. Brutish races improve physical aspects faster and so on. Could something like that be done, or is that going to far?
I liked the ideas of monster gangs being suggested some time ago. I never thought about it that deep, but more so having the option between monsters or humans. Monsters could have higher battle stats with a small bonus to catacomb searching, while humans would have higher stats for snatching girls, charming them, and other town related activities.
That's not to say you couldn't use monsters for thefts or sabotaging other gangs. You can do either for both, you'd just get a higher increase of suspicion if you use monsters in town than if you used humans. (I don't think a band of monsters stealing and harassing citizens is too common)
-
I liked the ideas of monster gangs being suggested some time ago. I never thought about it that deep, but more so having the option between monsters or humans. Monsters could have higher battle stats with a small bonus to catacomb searching, while humans would have higher stats for snatching girls, charming them, and other town related activities.
That's not to say you couldn't use monsters for thefts or sabotaging other gangs. You can do either for both, you'd just get a higher increase of suspicion if you use monsters in town than if you used humans. (I don't think a band of monsters stealing and harassing citizens is too common)
That's waaaay more practical than what I suggested.
-
Who was it who mentioned Chaos Overlords a while ago? I think that's the way to go on this. Lots of gangs with specific strengths and weaknesses, and with weirdness to match up to their names.
Hmmm...
-
What if you put in a racial aspect to the gangs? Like having gangs of werewolves or a gang composed of demons? They could be predisposed to specialize in certain tasks, like a group of orcs who get a bonus in smash n grab jobs, like sabotaging. Or if you hire vampires they'd be good at luring and kidnapping girls. It would also affect how fast or slow skills advance. Brutish races improve physical aspects faster and so on. Could something like that be done, or is that going to far?
This reminds me of the werewolves from Dragon Age Origins. Lead by the lady of the forest. (Makes grey alien look so hot)
Another idea I had would be to create an arson job, where your gangs focus more on destroying rival businesses instead of looting. Casualties would probably be unavoidable, since you're dealing with flames and stuff that goes boom. I thought that would balance things out somehow.
Could just have sabotage do this instead of robbing the rivals. Alternatly the gang keeps all the money. :D
Maybe you should add sliders instead to change what percentage of your "forces" would be dedicated to each task. Being unable to control specifically how many troops are assigned could lead to problems (and more whiny bitches pissin and moanin about it on the forums)
Bawwwing never stops. So trying to stop it just leads to insanity. However I was trying to think up the easiest way this could be implemented without to much repetition. Repetition, more than anything else, is what pisses people off. Sliders would fit into the less repitition catagory definitely.
-
Other species may be well represented by a leader bonus. Like werewoleves get +x% effect in combat and -y% on social jobs.
-
Maybe give the gangs traits, like with the girls?
-
Maybe give the gangs traits, like with the girls?
I don't think it's needed. I believe giving leaders bonuses to specific activities was the idea.
Say you have Naruto as your gang lieutenant. He'll give them a +5% to agility and a small bonus to kidnapping and spying on girls.
-
I agree. We don't need traits because we don't need consistency across gangs. We could add named bonuses though and capture some of the atmospher traits bring:
<Gang name = "Sleaze Street Wolves">
<Bonus name="Lycanthropy" >
<Effect name = "Damage Reduction" factor = "10%" />
<Effect name = "Magic Vulnerability" factor = "20%" />
</Bonus>
<Bonus name = "Savagery" desc="Bloodlust means these goons bring in fewer captives">
<Effect name = "Blood Lust" capture_chance="-10%" />
</Bonus>
</Gang>
Hmmm... that's a bit over complicated now I look at it, and the effects would probably need to be expressed as lua functions. Still, there's the germ of an idea there...
[edit]
Tidied up the XML a bit. It's still too complicated for what we're talking about at the moment, however
-
Why not have traits for the gang leaders? And those trickle down to the gangs? (or 1 gang you split up into multiple teams. Hint hint ;D )
-
Why not have traits for the gang leaders? And those trickle down to the gangs? (or 1 gang you split up into multiple teams. Hint hint ;D )
That's kind of what Doc proposed already. (The trait suggestion, not the gang one) even though I don't think it's completely necessary whether you call the leaders benefit a bonus or a trait. The fact of the matter is, you recruit a lieutenant and he/she provides additional stats or bonuses to your gang.
Whether you call them traits, bonuses, or what have you seems to be pretty unnecessary. Much like how I feel about the various traits girls have. I don't really NEED a description for big boobs, or fleet of foot. I know what they mean, I just want to know what stats they alter and by how much.
lol You're really pushing this one gang thing... a single gang that you split into multiple? Sounds pretty redundant. If the gang system is already in place why bother re-writing the entire code that'll essentially do the same thing? It's not really a simpler solution IMO. It seems to me to be essentially the same solution, gone about a different way. Instead of multiple gangs... you have one... that splits into several "groups"(gangs) you change the percentage of who does what and check off where you don't want them to go.
Yeah, same solution different way to do it. With that slider though, I'd have to split all my gangs up evenly into the categories I want right? But what if I wanted 75% of my gang to sabotage while the rest do guard duty? and explore the catacombs?
Maybe I just don't completely understand your idea, which is completely possible. I've done it before. But I don't really see a need to overhaul the entire gang system in place.
-
Well I made my case for it. I guess I'll stop :D
However, if anything, the gang leader idea that came out of this thread made making it worthwhile. ;D
-
Well I made my case for it. I guess I'll stop :D
However, if anything, the gang leader idea that came out of this thread made making it worthwhile. ;D
lol you don't have to stop. i'm just trying to understand the idea better. I have no say as to what goes and what doesn't, the idea just doesn't do anything for me. However, you're right to say this thread definitely helped bring out some gang ideas and I'm sure there's more just waiting to come out.
-
Yeah but I realized, the more I try to explain it, the less sense it is making(to me even. And I came up with it.) So I need to collect my thoughts and come up with a unified version of it.
-
This may help or it may not, but the way I saw the one gang idea was to have a set of sliders for each task that the gang can do. So for example
Guarding-25%
Sabatoge-30%
Kidnapping-15%
Catacombs-20%
Recruitment-10%
Guard-min-15 men
That way you have control over how much effort your gang puts into different activitis as well as a safety factor to prevent your gang from being comepletely wiped out.
So if you had 100 men each % would be one man/50-2%each, etc.
That was just my perception of it
-
Well I made my case for it. I guess I'll stop (http://pinkpetal.org/Smileys/DarkB/cheesy.gif)
However, if anything, the gang leader idea that came out of this thread made making it worthwhile. (http://pinkpetal.org/Smileys/DarkB/grin.gif)
Odd, I started off disliking gangs in general and fell in love with this concept (although since I'm not one of the programmers...).
I still feel the gang system is just a stripped down girl system that either should be truely different like Lorde's idea or rolled into the primary girl system for the reduced overhead. Otherwise it just seems you have two arbitrarily parallel systems. In this same vein adding gang leaders is just catching up gangs to the girls something that may have to happen over and over again to keep the gangs up.
-
Ok I threatened this, but here is my unified 1 gang proposal.
- The one gang will be the players Only gang and subsequently if it is destroyed assume player has lost. (Kinda like how rivals have one gang.)
- Players should be able to name their gang whatever they see fit. We can name our brothels in game so this shouldn't be to hard.
- Player is considered the Grand Master | Grand Puba | Grand One Eyed Wonder Weasel | Grand Whatever of his gang. This should make the player feel like he is in control of a criminal cartel, not just a job posting board for street thugs.
- Players can have a bonus for their gang, chosen at player creation. They are the head of the gang after all.
- Players can hire, find and|or turn girls into lieutenants of the gang. These grant the gang further bonuses.
- The one gang should have a cap on membership equal to what we have now. 8*15 = 120 so figure on that many members. This cap can, of course, go up or down as the need arises. Also should be configurable from the config file.
- The One gang should have jobs parceled out through a check box set up in the gang management screen. check off which jobs you want the gang to do. The game will auto allot members to each task. Subsequently, choosing to much for the gang to do to early can be dangerous.
- Sliders can be present as well to adjust how much of the gang concentrates on what task.
- A safety option can be set up in the config file for a Gang member cut off. If it goes under this number, all Member switch to guarding automatically and don't change unless it goes back over that number.
- Training should be removed in favor of a learn by doing system as well as the number of members in the gang. The more members, the higher the stats become. However, without practice these stats should fluctuate. Doing a job these stats are associated with would lower how much these stats fluctuate by. So in other words, lets assume Sabotaging is based off strength for a moment. And the gang is at 100 members so it's base strength stat is fairly high. (lets say 100) but they have never done sabotage before. So there stat actually has a random value of between say a floor of 50 and and a ceiling of 100. The more they sabotage however, the more this random value shrinks, so after say 25 sabotage jobs, the stat fluctuates between a floor of 75 and and a ceiling of 100 now.
- Losing gang members should drop your stats. As well as drop your stat floor. So losing 5 members in the above scenario would drop gang strength to 95 and and the stat fluctuates now between 70 and 95. Gaining new members increases your ceiling. (95 to 100) but not your floor (still 70 till they do more sabotaging.)
- Conversely, Recruiting missions should be removed as well, but a handful of gang members should be auto added every week.
And that's everything I can think of. In all honesty most of this can be implemented with the gang system we have now. As I mentioned however, it would feel more like you where the head of a criminal organization if you had one gang. So I guess that is the only real reason I'm pushing for it. :D Note that I do know we can mod names already for gangs, but if we do go the 1 gang route, being able to chose your gang name at the start would be a nice touch.
-
My principle reservation about the One Gang idea is that it needs a fairly complex interface to work properly. Without the sliders, it's a bit clumsy, requiring you allocate your goons equally among all tasks . With sliders it's more or less equivalent to what we have now.
I can see where you're coming from with the idea, but I'm not convinced it's the best solution.
I agree about casualties dropping gang stats, and they way gangs recover their numbers needs looking at. (I might take it down to 50% chance a turn, going up to 100 if recruiting, and maybe allow bonuses as gang bonuses, for instance).
-
My principle reservation about the One Gang idea is that it needs a fairly complex interface to work properly. Without the sliders, it's a bit clumsy, requiring you allocate your goons equally among all tasks . With sliders it's more or less equivalent to what we have now.
Point taken, I'm kinda having second thoughts on the idea. Really what it all boils down to for me is ascetics. And while I was thinking of this list I realized you could do everything here with the gang setup we have now. So instead of reinventing the wheel it's probably better to put the engine on next. :D
-
would it be possible to have the turn report for all gangs in a single page?
if not, could you get rid of the "this gang is guarding/recruiting/exploring the catacombs" panels and make the actual report the first thing you see when you select a gang?
-
I'd like to have all the reports on one page. The trick is working out how to do it and still leave room for the girl's pics.
The message ordering seems like a good idea. Anything to make it easier to follow gang activities
-
I'd like to have all the reports on one page. The trick is working out how to do it and still leave room for the girl's pics.
The message ordering seems like a good idea. Anything to make it easier to follow gang activities
I don't know about everyone else but I'd prefer a more seamless report system with smaller pics than one with huge pics that I have to scroll through. Have you played Sim Brothel? Maybe we should do a report system like that. Shows a single pic (random) but lists all the things the girl did to the side.
Any dangerous reports would be in red. Of course, this way you can't see a picture for each event that took place, but do you really need to? There's the gallery for that.
Maybe we can find some generic images for the gangs as well... it'll take some searching but I'm sure it's possible.
-
I'd like to have all the reports on one page. The trick is working out how to do it and still leave room for the girl's pics.
I don't think there is a trick here. Either you have one big summary, or you have what you have now with a pic of each action. The best you could do here is to have one big summary with the option to browse through the individual actions. Or make it a selectable option that could be changed before end of turn if that causes too much clutter.
-
Have you played Sim Brothel? Maybe we should do a report system like that. Shows a single pic (random) but lists all the things the girl did to the side.
Any dangerous reports would be in red. Of course, this way you can't see a picture for each event that took place, but do you really need to? There's the gallery for that.
My vote is against the single random pic option.
And yes! I do need to see a pic. for every event that took place. I need this for managerial purposes of course. ;D
IMHO the gallery is if you're just being lazy.
(sgb may have just made this suggestion about using a filter, but i'll mention it anyways)
What about adding in a filter option?? Have one big summary then on screen have the ability to filter out what you don't want and what you do want to see.
For example:
if you just want to look at what the gangs did for the turn simply check just the gangs and nothing else.
Or something like girl activity --filter-> warnings
or even by brothel like this: (Brothel #3) --filter-> girl activity --filter-> BDSM
The filters will let the player have the option to only view what they want to see but still have the option of viewing the entire summary by turning off the filters.
-
My vote is against the single random pic option.
And yes! I do need to see a pic. for every event that took place. I need this for managerial purposes of course. ;D
IMHO the gallery is if you're just being lazy.
(sgb may have just made this suggestion about using a filter, but i'll mention it anyways)
Wow, well excuse me. That was my fault for assuming everyone played the way I did. I just look to see what girls are highlighted in red.
I still think the option I suggested is the simplest most effective way for a quicker summary screen. I vote ease of use over naked pictures any day.
-
personally, I don't even see why we have so many pictures for each event
just one good pic per category would be more than enough, and it would make room for more categories, like the aforementioned angry/sad/etc.
-
Oh, crap... I was working on pic expansion packs.
-
Oh, crap... I was working on pic expansion packs.
I started doing girl packs
then I came here and saw the thumbs thing
now, I wait
-
Well, the thumbs stuff is pretty theoretical for the time being. I'm definitely going to do it, but there's a chunk of stuff to do first, and nothing is going to break if the pics aren't there.
If you've got a pack in mind, go for it :)
-
is there an explanation on how the specific stats affect things?
I found one by zodiak44, but it's pretty vague, and I think it's outdated
-
Check the Manual (http://pinkpetal.org/index.php?topic=20.0)thread. It's got necno's explanation of what all the stats mean.
-
I started doing girl packs
then I came here and saw the thumbs thing
now, I wait
DEFINITELY could use some icons for the unique girls that come with the game. Hell, wouldn't hurt to make some generic ones either. I'm sure there's better ways to make them than the way I did.